Real Estate Law, Estate Sale Laws.

Estates may also be held jointly as joint tenants with rights of survivorship or as tenants in common. The difference in these two types of joint ownership of an estate in land is basically the inheritability of the estate. In joint tenancy (or in marriage this is sometimes called tenancy of the entirety) the surviving tenant (or tenants) become the sole owner (or owners) of the estate.

Nothing passes to the heirs of the deceased tenant. In some jurisdictions the magic words "with right of survivorship" must be used or the tenancy will assumed to be tenants in common. Tenants in common will have a heritable portion of the estate in proportion to their ownership interest which is presumed to be equal amongst tenants unless otherwise stated in the transfer deed. There are other types of estates in land that are used to prevent the alienation of land (also used in the law of trusts).

Generally these are called future interests, an example being the rule against perpetuities. See also the Rule in Shelley's Case.

Real property may not only be owned it may be leased in which the possession of the property is given to the tenant for a limited period of time. Such leases are also called estates such as an estate for years, a periodic tenancy or an estate at will.

Real property may also be owned jointly through the device of the condominium or cooperative.

Economic aspects of real property

Because real immovable property is essential for industry or other activity requiring a lot of fixed physical capital, economics is very concerned with real immovable property and rules like the one regarding its valuation and disposition, and obligations accrueing to its owners. In economic terms, real property consists of some natural capital (or land, one of the factors of production especially in agriculture), and infrastructural capital (the buildings, water and power lines, and other improvements necessary to make immovable property useful for some human purpose). Other fixed physical assets, indistinguishable economically from infrastructure, such as machines, may be stored on immovable property and may require natural or infrastructural attributes (such as running water for a turbine or an isolated location to allow loud noise emissions) hard to duplicate even nearby.